Adhesives can be used in surgery for wound repair and as attachment devices to join tissue. For surgery, a rapid setting time or polymerization time is needed to reduce time and surgical costs. Rapid setting time is a dual edge sword. On one hand, rapid setting times can make an adhesive useful, on the other hand, the nozzle of the glue dispensing device can become blocked from a brief period of inactivity.
Adhesives can be single part or dual part. Of interest are dual part adhesives that can be stored in two separate chambers and brought together and mixed just before being applied to tissue.
Closure Medical is conducting an FDA clinical trial using a cyanoacrylate adhesive as an internal vascular tissue sealant and internal surgical adhesive. Some adhesives such as the cyanoacrylates, stick well to tissue. Additionally, the adhesives can be biocompatable, bioabsorbable, and/or flexible, inside the body. Cyanoacrylate adhesives are described in United States Application 20040190975 by Goodman et al. which is herein incorporated by reference in its entirety.
With the high cost of surgery and the ever increasing pressures to drop the cost of surgery, there is a need for a surgical adhesive dispensing device that can dispense all of the adhesive, or can store unused adhesives for some period of time
Consequently, a significant need exists for a surgical adhesive dispensing device that can reliably dispense adhesive, is low in cost, can reduce the possibility of blocking the adhesive dispensing nozzle, and can dispense the entire amount of the adhesive without requiring disposal of unused portions of adhesive.